


Blank Pages over the Cherry Trees

by melancholicpenman



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Minor Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Seventeen - Freeform, also idk how to make tags, contains cursing idk if you're down with that, contract dating or whatever i'm not sure how to call it, mingyu is annoying somehow, sassy wonwoo, seventeen ot13, seventeen university au, student chef kim mingyu, student writer jeon wonwoo, weird mentions of literary history
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-06 20:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15893598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholicpenman/pseuds/melancholicpenman
Summary: “I wish I could stop speaking in metaphors and tell you how I actually feel—and what I feel is that we were made for each other.”In which Jeon Wonwoo is a literature student who's invested in metaphors until culinary student Kim Mingyu comes along and makes him realize otherwise.{currently under hiatus}





	1. Where Tortoiseshell Meets the Mongrel

I

 

 

 

       More often than not, Jeon Wonwoo finds himself looking down from the ledge of the university rooftop—feeling the sultry wind brush past where his firm skin is exposed. Days like this weren’t technically his bad days; just the days when he felt as if the world had started to sink into him. _Again_.

       He gapes at the open field, just exactly where the chain of cherry trees meet the cypress forest. Spring is already ending and they’ve lost the bloom from the missing chill of the past winter, and now, they look like these empty forks that were readY to bayonet into his thin body if he were to fall. It's quite different from what he learned in his Japanese literature course—that cherry blossoms were supposed to be beautiful and resemble love and affection; not the augmented decimation of a lost soul.

       Maybe though, along the lines, that’s just what Wonwoo wanted. Where the twigs drift out from the rough branches, he would rally up his arms in sweet escapade—as sweet as the cherry blossoms falling, the saccharine end of it all.

_How beautiful would it be just to fall—to be free?_

       And if you had asked him before, if he wanted to live, more often than not, he’d shake his head with a smile, as if a fool was taking in his words. He’d say, “We’re all just cherry trees in the summer," and make his way to his next class. But now, more often than not, he's tired of the question—especially when more often than he could, he doesn't want to fall in such beauty anymore, not when there's nothing there

       See, Wonwoo hasn’t held anything except for the book from the top of his stack, but for some reason he goes out on a limb and figures that they were blank pages after all.

       “Jeon Wonwoo!” a voice beckons him as if Wonwoo were a cat— _maybe he was a cat,_ he registers as he turns to see a boy in the position of a squat, his hands clutching either of his knees before grinning and laughing through his sweat. "I kinda figured you were here."

       But besides everything else, more often than he expects, Wonwoo encounters an entity in its purest form that was seeking after him from the hefty set of stairwells.

       “Me?” Wonwoo asks as he paces on both his sides to make sure he was the one the boy was calling out to.

       It was odd. Especially when the boy was someone he’s never even talked to before. Wonwoo didn’t even know his name. Well...yes, he’s seen him a couple times with Jihoon, his friend from the university’s literature club, but it wasn’t really enough to make Wonwoo curious about him and search him up online. The boy was just a fleeting entity only inching away from what Wonwoo finds interest in, but at the moment, what’s most interesting is the way the boy’s tan skin glistens under the radiant, shifting-into-summer sun.

       “Of course. Do you suppose I’m talking to a ghost?” the boy says as he walks closer. He wipes a bead of sweat and runs his hand dry on his shirt before putting out his hand for a shake. “By the way, you’ve probably heard about me. I’m Mingyu from year 2 in Culinary Arts and the most handsome man in this university. I'd say country but I don't want to take the credit away from my dad, not when he made me, you know. I guess I'm better looking, though, but don't tell him that.”

       “Who?” is the only thing Wonwoo could reply—asking him to repeat it since the introduction almost made him deaf. It sounded so absurd, and Wonwoo could only make a face he's never imagined before.

       “Mingyu. Kim Mingyu. For you, it’s Mingyu sunbae-nim," he continues, even prouder than the way his hair was swept back in sweat where the boy still had his hand out with his canine smile.

       “Sunbae-nim?” Wonwoo raises an eyebrow at Mingyu. “I’m in year 3. What do you mean ‘sunbae-nim’?”

       Flustered at the retort, Mingyu takes his hand that was left untouched and puts it in his pocket slyly. Wonwoo just rolls his eyes when he sees the other keeping his cool. He breathes in the air from the rooftops, it was gonna be another day, huh?

       “Ah, I’m sorry,” the boy hurriedly apologizes. “I thought you were younger than me because I always see you with Hansol from year 1, and Jihoon hyung never really specified. You see, I’ve always been mista—”

       Mingyu blabbers and laughs to himself like a little dork but Wonwoo cuts him off. _Jihoon hangs out with a kid like this? Really?_

       “Shut it. What do you want?” He doesn’t really intend to sound too cold but the frozen words stick with him as if it were his brand. He could see the other trying to keep a smile despite the strong humid air now blowing past their skins.

       If only the wind could take Wonwoo somewhere else, it would be good.

       “Oh, yeah about that. I’ll make this quick.” Mingyu catches his breath that seems to have arrived late, exhaling it all with a laugh that made it sound like he was in the verge of dying.

       “You better do. I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone,” Wonwoo says. If there was anything else he wanted in this moment other than to be lifted by the sweltering gusts of earth, it’s that he wanted to be alone.

       “Geez, you’re too cold for your own sake. Did you know that?” Mingyu asks jokingly.

       He knows he looks cold—he knows he is —but it doesn’t hurt Wonwoo. He’s heard the same thing from everyone he knows: his parents, his brother, the creative writing teacher from his senior year, the girl who sat beside him at lunch yesterday. Even with that, Wonwoo didn’t really care.

       “Name me something I’m not aware of kid,” Wonwoo tells him, before taking a step back to turn to the scenery he was looking at earlier. And as if in a different dimension all of a sudden, Wonwoo feels the lingering quiet in the high noon but it doesn’t take long until he hears the Mingyu kid behind him begin to speak again.

       “Hey, hey. I was just kidding, hyung. Don’t actually ignore me.” Mingyu reaches out to him and grab his arm to face him, but Wonwoo shakes it off like an old shirt hanging from his loose skinny arms. He never liked being touched—not even Junhui who has literally lived with him for the past 3 years could touch him at the slightest.

       Wonwoo could only ogle at Mingyu who looks like he had just touched pure unadulterated ice before he speaks. “You already told me what you wanted. You may leave.” he turns to gesture at the small rooftop door that’s still wide open from the rock he propped there to keep it from being locked. The door could only be accessed from the inside, and if he closed it even at the slightest, he'd be better off dead.

       “Geez, that’s not- not what I was going to say, hyung.” Wonwoo looks at him with a blank face that he takes as a sign to continue. He notices Mingyu debate a little in his head.

        _"I don’t really know how to put the proper words together, hyung, but okay, so will you like, I don’t know...go out with me, I guess?”_

       Wonwoo’s poker face fades as mouth drops at the question that’s still ringing in his ears. _What in the world_? Mingyu must be kidding. In no way is he asking him out. That’s the most absurd thing Wonwoo has ever heard.

       “You’re joshing, right? You’re totally joshing,” Wonwoo asks mockingly and Mingyu stares at him profound, no sign of hoodwinking or anything, just pure and innocent. “This is so ridiculous. Do you want me to laugh?"

       Mingyu just breathes with no answer escaping his lips until the older’s once sharp eyes sink into thought and then to a moment of realization. Wonwoo laughs it off and blinks to adjust his eyes before he chortles once more and turns back at the cherry trees. “Thanks for wasting my time, kid.”

       “I’m serious, hyung. Will you date me?” Mingyu asks again. This time, he walks in front of Wonwoo, blocking his view. Wonwoo rolls his eyes in annoyance and decides to leave instead, but Mingyu follows him around like a dog.

       “No, wait. Hyung, hear me out. Okay?” He has yet to reach the flight of stairs when Mingyu grabs him by the arm firmly. Wonwoo tries to wring his arm away once again, but to no avail.

       Wonwoo looks at Mingyu straight in the eye to which the other holds ground before Wonwoo rolls his own in defeat. “What is it? I have things to sort out other than your bullshit. If you have nothing else to say please just go.”

       Mingyu shakes his head and holds Wonwoo tighter and he swears he could feel his skin burn from where Mingyu holds.

       “Okay, so this kind of like a, you know, some sort of a short notice, but I need to make Minghao jealous.”

        _Minghao_? Xu Minghao? Jun’s Chinese friend?

       “Are we thinking of the same Minghao?” Wonwoo checks. “The fashionista kid with Wen Junhui?”

       “Yes. How did you know Junhui hyung?” Mingyu trails and Wonwoo just stares at his finger pointing at his watch, to which Mingyu follows suit and continues. “Anyway, this is about the two of them. You know they’re dating, right?”

       “Isn’t that obvious? They’re too lovey—dovey with each other,” Wonwoo points out, once again, loosening the other’s grip until Mingyu lets go of him. “Also, Junhui is my friend so I know some things.

       “Oh, so you do have friends,” Mingyu says in a moment of realization, to which Wonwoo makes a face at.

        _God, this kid, really._

       “Just fuck off, alright? I won’t ‘date’ you or whatever,” he throws finger quotes at the term, still maintaining that annoyed form scrunched up at the tip of his nose. “I don’t know what you want, let alone who you are.”

       “You do, hyung. I already told you who I was, didn’t I? I’m Mingyu,” he introduces again. Mingyu points at himself for emphasis before he continues, “And besides, you haven’t even let me explain everything yet. You’re just swerving the topic.”

       “I never wanted this topic, Min...gyu,” Wonwoo finds an ounce of spite with the name that he’s never heard anywhere else before. _Mingyu_...what did that name even mean? If his years of learning Chinese characters from Junhui renders him useful, it’s Min for gem stone and Gyu for star. A gemstone that shines like a star. _Hmm, alluring_ , he tells himself.

       “Oh, it gets interesting, hyung, don’t worry,” Mingyu convinces, but Wonwoo stands his ground. _Who does this kid think he is, though?_

       “I digress, kid. Leave me alone,” Wonwoo tells him off, letting his eyes linger for a moment before he walks and takes the stairs down to his next class to the opposite building that had been situated near the cityscapes and he never really enjoyed the rooftop there that's why he goes to the one he's stood at even if it was far— it was just affluent with the sounds of noisy streets and air pollution. He’d usually take his time to arrive at the urban building, but this time, he was walking twice his original pace. Mingyu was still following him like a weird stalker, and it wasn’t what Wonwoo wasn’t expecting after leaving, but it wasn’t comfortable either—especially when the other was calling out his name in different tones like a role-play.

       If Wonwoo had a dollar for every time he tried to ignore Mingyu, he’d at least have a decent dinner. And if he had twice of that for every hallway corner that Mingyu would follow him to, he’d be able to treat the other dinner—lunch too, even.

       “Wonwoo hyung! Jeon Wonwoo! Won-uwu!” he exclaims, and Wonwoo covers his ears, kind of reminiscent to the trumpet boy meme he’d once seen on Hansol’s social media.

       It is, well, quite embarrassing, so much that Wonwoo starts to turn red.

       “Don’t you have classes to go to, Mingyu?” Wonwoo finally stops, just outside of the civic edifice of his Korean Semantics class, and turns to Mingyu who was held up in his steps by the sudden interrogation.

       “Well, yeah,” Mingyu admits. “It’s in 15 minutes.”

       “Then go to your classes instead of following me?” Wonwoo suggests and Mingyu replies with his shoulders and arms in a shrug. “Oh my god, why are you so annoying? Can’t you just leave me alone?”

       “I can’t. I need this, hyung. I’d rather be late,” Mingyu practically begs. He sounds quite pathetic, almost to the point where Wonwoo would burst out laughing, but instead just stares at the boy as if he’s a lost puppy. _God, Wonwoo’s allergic to dogs._

       “Fine. I’ll hear you out, but my answer is still no. Also, stop calling me ‘hyung’, please,” Wonwoo says.

       “Thank you, thank you. God bless you, h-hyung." Wonwoo stares him down to which he just chuckles at. The kid is awfully dumb for his own cause. “So, yeah, since we have the thing between Minghao and Jun hyung established, I’ll start off from there.”

       “Stop that—you’re making an essay. Just cut to the point, won’t you?”

       Mingyu hushes him, gesturing with a finger crossing his lips.

       “That ruins the essence of it all...hyung,” Mingyu says. “Anyways, as much as it’s worth, I need you to help me make Minghao jealous. See, I’ve had this like ‘thing’ going on with him since the start of the semester, but all of a sudden he goes out with Wen Junhui. I mean, that’s kinda absurd, but I guess half of it is my mistake since I didn’t just date him right off the bat. But we’re friends, you know? I can’t ruin anything. And Minghao is somehow timid that he really won’t ask me anything unless it meant doom or anything terrible. Anyhow, bottom line, I think he’s out to make me jealous.”

        _Hold up...what?_ The boy was blabbering again and Wonwoo tries to catch up.

       “Are you high or something? Do they sell drugs to Culinary students now?” It sounded so absurd, more so the fact that maybe, they sell drugs at Culinary Arts when they always seemed so pure. But Wonwoo concludes for a fact that Mingyu isn’t really that pure unlike when he first saw him.

       “I’m clean, hyung,” he corrects, “It’s just that when I’m third-wheeling them, they speak in Chinese so they’re probably plotting something against me. I don’t know.” Mingyu explains, but it’s still as vague as the time it reaches Wonwoo’s ears, still ringing until the point in his finger.

       "Aren't you over thinking this a little bit too much?" Wonwoo asks. He probably just is, especially when it's just this dumb.

       "You sound like a bad shrink but no, hyung. I’m sure that they’re making me jealous, which I am, unfortunately.” Mingyu tells Wonwoo and shrugs.

       Wonwoo tries to digest it, churning it until it’s just this whole bolus of Mingyu’s ridiculous ideas. "What does this have to do with me?"

       "You're the perfect person for this, hyung," Mingyu tells him as if flattering, but Wonwoo doesn't take it. "Don't you see? Minghao is making me jealous. He's petty. I have to teach him a lesson."

       “Then just tell him?” he presents in persuasion so that the younger would stop with his ridiculity. "Don't rope me into this. This is your own battle, mate, even if it's the dumbest thing I've heard. For all it's worth, I'll be rooting for your success, kid. Good luck." Wonwoo raises his fist and throws it ever so slightly to fire up Mingyu. God, he just wanted to get away. Can't this end already?

       Wonwoo was going to enter the building, but the younger pulls him back so they're face to face.

       “How do I even do that?” Mingyu asks, slurring the last few words in attempt to ask for suggestion.

       Wonwoo doesn’t know how. He never really had this situation in his life. See, the lesser people around, the lesser the baggage. Instead, Wonwoo just replies with something just as vague as everything he’s heard. “You blabber at me, a stranger, but not at your friend.” Wonwoo says as if it’s that simple. He couldn’t even do that for himself—what an asshole.

       “That’s different. I’m just as timid as he is,” Mingyu tells him before lingering in continuation. “Is your answer still no? Won’t you help a junior out?”

       “What in the fucking fuck? No?” he states in a retort. “You can’t just expect me to say yes after hearing your dilemma. What do you think I do, charity cases?”

       “It doesn’t have to be a charity case, hyung. We can make this like some sort of mutual thing. You help me, I help you.”

       “And why would you think I’d agree to that? And if I do, what’s in it for me?” Wonwoo asks, still doubting. No matter what, he will never say yes to what Mingyu proposes. It was a huge sham; Wonwoo doesn’t deal with shit like this—not in this economy and time of life.

       “Kim Mingyu as your inspiration?” Mingyu says with much chagrin. His teeth showing, the complete set as if trying to captivate the older. Wonwoo doesn’t say much, he just digresses with the glint in his eyes, making effort to shine it brighter in hopes that it gets through Mingyu’s hard head. “Is that a no?”

       Wonwoo stares at him in silence.

       He could only laugh at the younger's proposition. This is more stupid than the time he accidentally made a haiku instead of a tanka. There's just no way he could make Wonwoo say yes. They barely know each other and Wonwoo isn't much of a keeper. He can't commit to this, not when there's nothing in the line for him. If he did, it'd be dumb.

       For a second, Wonwoo curses himself for even having that tiny hint of consideration at the back of his mind. If he did...no he fucking won't. _No fucking way._

       “I’ll take that as a yes. See you tomorrow.” Mingyu sends him flying kisses before he runs off to god-knows-where, probably to class, and right then and there, Wonwoo has never felt so dumbstruck.

        _What the fuck just happened?_

       Wonwoo is left there, jaw slightly dropping, but he’s brought back to reality, when Junhui arrives beside him, giving him a small nudge. He winces at the touch before closes his eyes to breathe in and out and adjust his vision.

       “Hey, why are you still out here?” Junhui asks, looking at where Wonwoo’s eyes landed, seeing the familiar structure of a man walking in the far distance, high-fiving himself. "Is that Kim Mingyu? You know him?”

       “Don’t even mention that name anywhere near me, Jun,” Wonwoo says as he walks away and enters the building, feeling like a cherry tree was planted in him against his will.

        _Great. Just great._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	2. Shakespeare? Shakes Fears?—Snake Pears?

II

 

 

 

       “Wait!” Wen Junhui calls out for Wonwoo from the large glass doorway as he runs to match the other’s pace. Wonwoo walked fast, quite fast for someone who’s only hobby other than reading was lazing around and sleeping—well, his years of high school sports paid off quite good at least, or maybe it’s the retained energy from the idleness he’s rendered.

      “Why can’t I say Mingyu’s name?” Junhui asks from his stead, confused. Even the name makes Wonwoo shudder with vexation. “Do you have beef with him? Is that what it is?”

      “It’s nothing, Jun,” Wonwoo answers, still keeping his pace[The bottom line of it all: Wonwoo was a performance arts major and a real nagger—as to which Junhui acts like a mom to Wonwoo who’s a real hard headed kid if he could really put it, to be quite honest.] unmatched. “We don’t have beef. I don’t even know him.”

      “Is that so?” He was already at the middle of the long hallway when Junhui catches up to him. Wen Junhui is Wonwoo’s roommate and quite possibly, his closest friend on campus. The two met under the sky full of clouds on the first day of freshman year; Junhui’s Korean still as fluent as someone who’s only lived in the country for not even two years.

      “Yeah. Stop digging your nose into my life,” Wonwoo tells him off and Junhui just hums in response.

      Where Wonwoo comes off as someone who’s as cold as ice, Junhui is rather pegged as a sunshine in spring. Junhui was too nice for his own sake and he takes care of others as much as he would himself while Wonwoo didn’t even care unless it invaded his personal space of a 4 feet radius. But magically, quite astoundingly, the two have bonded over both their love of books and despite being a foreigner, Junhui could understand the difficult metaphors Wonwoo would speak of.

      “By the way, I have theater rehearsals tonight and I was hoping you could go watch us tonight? Just to support, yeah?” he asks, eyes overcast as he treks on a speedy stride. Jun was about the same height as Wonwoo, but even with the same leg length, Wonwoo edges from him. And Junhui, despite his childhood years of loose muscles and bones from martial arts, felt languid with the way Wonwoo was striding across the linoleum floor.

      “I have things to do, Jun,” Wonwoo tells him. He purses his lips in the form of the last sound that escaped his mouth and Jun follows, pouting, slight faux pas with the response.

      “Is watching us practice for theater one of those?” Jun asks impertinently, raising his pitch at the end, making it sound more like a squeak than quiz.

      “Uh, no,” he answers sternly, stopping at the corner where the staircases were grounded. Junhui was supposed to be at another building. Since he was in performance arts, his department quite far from where Wonwoo’s was situated, but Junhui’s here, and Wonwoo was looking at the him with the leftover annoyance—most likely rooted from Mingyu’s vexatious little antics.

      If Wonwoo just was about anything, he’d be repressed anger: fiery angst and well, just not being able to vent it out— _he doesn’t know how to_. See, Wonwoo has issues, but as much as he could, he’s just too ashamed of it. He just wants a clean slate and a life without much anger, but he can’t have it so he makes one as he sweeps it under the rag.

      Well, maybe one day it’d be blown by the wind, taken away as what dust becomes in the midst of a soft zephyr, but by then, he’d be gone and out the window.

      He opens his mouth in pursuit to tell Junhui off since he probably has classes, but instead gets cut off with the other’s goo-goo eyes. “Why not?”

      “I’m busy,” Wonwoo says, still that hint of flame in his words. “Can’t Minghao be there to watch instead?”

      “Well, he is one of the casts, so...” Junhui trails. “...yeah. There’s that.”

      “Jihoon then?” he suggests. Wonwoo has always been a subject of people asking him to do stuff with it resulting to him disagreeing and then for some reason, all of a sudden he finds himself in that exact situation, doing whatever was asked of him. But after Mingyu, Wonwoo tries to sound firm, but still as soft as he could to Junhui.

      “He’s busy.” Junhui is tight-lipped and lapping around him like a small little puppy. God, he reminds him so much of Mingyu—quite a contradiction when he’s known Junhui longer than any other of his friends in college and Mingyu was just a stranger up until a good 20 minutes ago. He racks his shoes and drags his feet across the floor, forming shapes from where the toes meet the tight linoleum.

      “Well I am too, Einstein.”

      “I know so much as to not ask you to these stuff, man,” Junhui admits. “But you’re pretty much my last resort as of this point. Besides, you’re the playwright. Don’t you want to see your work come to life?”

      “Is that why you came all the way here?” he interrogates, ignoring the last two lines because it doesn’t even matter anyway. “...Because I’m last resort?”

      Wonwoo felt a little offended, but realizes it’s on him. He’s pretty much told anyone not to consult with him unless they’re a step from winding up dead. He kind of regrets it—quite distasteful, but _he’ll live with it._

      “You got me there.” Junhui sends finger guns and laughs as his hands fall and hang behind his loose, lanky frame. “I just wanted a friend to come see me, but fine, I won’t force you if you’re really that against everything, bud.” Junhui says instead when he notices Wonwoo do the same thing with his arms but instead raises them another time just after the bounce to massage his temple as he writhes in fluster with the attempts in reverse psychology.

      Wonwoo has always found himself caught between a rock and a hard place and contrary to popular opinion, it’s never better to go with the flow even if there’s wave to push you out. Scylla and Charybdis where never even asked about their opinion on the idiom. _Third party help was just bullshit and never exists unless you flip one finger from your peace close and release one from its comfort._

      “J-just...open the dorm door for me when I get back, alright? Thanks for the friendship.” Junhui articulates, his artificially trained tongue rolling his Rs in delight. It sounded cheeky, more like he’s trying to make Wonwoo heed him, which was clearly working. Wonwoo easily falls for people and Junhui making him feel guilty for not being able to come with really takes a toll on Wonwoo—not when his psyche and physique were bitching to begin with.

      “Goddamn it. You owe me dinner for a week,” Wonwoo says, defeated and already regretting it.

      “Really?”

      “Yeah, whatever. Go, you’ll be late.” He sighs as he sees Junhui’s eyes light up, giddy in his place like a baby penguin tapping on both his heels.

      “Bye, man.” Junhui laughs and runs off the same way Mingyu did earlier. Everything about Junhui reminded him of Mingyu. He hypothesizes that maybe, quite plausibly, this is the reason as to why Minghao deviated from Mingyu to his friend. They were quite similar.

      But, if he were Minghao, maybe he wouldn’t—he knows Junhui too much to be a fool for him, and he’s done being a fool and finding himself in situations against his desire—but at the same time, he wouldn’t choose Mingyu either.

      And Junhui might be a real nagger, but these days, Wonwoo starts to wonder who’s the bigger baby between them. He’d admit it’s him, but Junhui is a close second (inching from just beside Wonwoo’s goal point.) and being first was never Wonwoo’s thing, to be quite honest.

      “Yeah,” Wonwoo says to thin air before he takes the flight of stairs to the 4th floor of the building, wondering as to why they haven’t installed elevators yet even with the hefty sets of floors with each edifice in the campus. Wonwoo thinks it’s probably capitalism, but he was running late to Semantics class thanks to two wild and extremely swaying, people who left him aghast in the short time he lost awareness of the situation.

       

      After a few classes, Wonwoo finds himself in the middle of a theater, the director a good distance of seats in front of him. He arches his back and slowly sinks into the seat, feeling the velvet cloth that binds them whole as he gets enveloped in the darkness that filled the back part of the theater. The air-condition from both the far sides of the room hits him with a shiver and he slowly considers leaving, but he sees Junhui wave at him from the corner of the wide stage. He waves back weakly for a bit before retreating into his warm shell and rub his cold hands together like a prayer.

       _“Deidre chased for everything she wanted in her entire life—”_ he hears the narrator speak from the four large amplified speakers that permeates each corner of the room, voice booming like what a god might sound like if he spoke to man.

      They were performing a play developed from one of Wonwoo’s works during his freshman year in college. He called it _ **Thoroughfare.**_ , a passageway. The story was a hit—it was his hit. He remembers how they published his work into the university’s paper. Everyone knew it was Wonwoo who wrote it. It was good and he was proud. His professor had even asked him if they could submit it as the play’s script. Wonwoo was hesitant, but said yes nonetheless.

       But as much as he’s confident with his skills, Wonwoo never liked whatever he wrote at that time. He was full of life then, full of conviction. He just knew he was unstoppable—that he’d be everything he ever wanted to be without anyone hindering him from that goal. And maybe it’s just that he’s grown older and more mature, but Wonwoo digresses, thinking he was wrong for thinking that at that time.

       _"—her love, her dreams and the beauty they faced as she wallows under the right sun.”_ He notices they’ve changed bits of the script, making the flow sound not awkward but foreign in his ears. They seem to have canceled out the morbidity and took off on a brighter route for the story. _“In that thoroughfare, she began to open her eyes and see her desires. ”_

       _Good for them, then._

      He reaches into his pocket to take out his phone when he senses someone taking the seat beside him. The once cold atmosphere warming with the addition of body heat. Wonwoo doesn’t look up to see who it was, but digresses from taking his phone out to turn his head away and sleep instead.

      Wonwoo’s drifted into sleep for probably 30 minutes when he feels some rustling beside him.“Hey, Wonwoo hyung,” he hears the person whisper and grab his bony shoulders, shaking. Wonwoo doesn’t budge, pretending to still be asleep until the person repeated calling his name a few more times. When it starts to bother him (as if it hadn’t already) he turns his head to the direction of the person only to find a widely smiling Kim Mingyu. “Hello, hyung.”

      He looks at him sternly for a good 10 seconds before he lowers his head in thought and lifts it back just at the sudden realization. “What the fuck?” Wonwoo curses under his breath, careful not to raise his tone any louder than a buzz.

      “Hyung, are you not going to say ‘hello’ back to your cute boyfriend?” Mingyu asks.

      “What do you mean? I never agreed to anything!” he half yells, quite flustered. He discerns the earlier pique itinerant in his veins and Wonwoo swears he could feel vomit build up at the bottom of his stomach. “Why are you even here?”

      “Minghao mentioned that Jun hyung would be bringing a friend so they’ll probably get drinks after, and ta-da! I figured it would be you so I came with,” Mingyu explains. “I also really wanted to talk about the whole boyfriend thing so that we can make it believable. I reckon we didn’t have time for that earlier.”

      “Why are you talking like some announcer? Also, that’s bullshit. I have nothing, zero, nil, and again, nothing to do with you.” Wonwoo crosses his arms in emphasis.

      “I’m kinda hurt,” Mingyu says and pouts. He puts his head on his fists and makes a faint noise. “Min-min doesn’t deserve this slander. Hyung-nim is so cold.”

      “I told you to stop calling me hyung, didn’t I?” Wonwoo asks as if reprimanding the other.

      “What else should I call you, then?” Mingyu asks, looking for suggestions. “Do you prefer _amigo_ instead?”

      “I prefer nothing.” Wonwoo says as Mingyu squints his eyes in question and looks at him, mouth gaping. “Yeah. Don’t talk to me.”

      “No can do, amigo!” Mingyu quips.

      “I’m going to zap you, you cheeky bastard, I swear to God.” Wonwoo threatens with his whole heart, resolving Mingyu’s awful aegyo (in his end) with violence.

      “Zap me with your love?” Mingyu puts through the wringer and Wonwoo’s sure Mingyu sees him rolls his eyes with the way his mirthful face lights up the dark theater walls. The boy was just too bright for his own sake and Wonwoo wonders if he could ever find that light too, but decides it would probably be best not to— _the monsters are only seen when there’s a candle in darkness._

      “You just won’t stop, won’t you?” he agitates.

      “Never! Not while you’re my boyfriend, at least.” Mingyu practically phrases the last words slowly, making sure they dig deep through Wonwoo’s skin.

      “I am not!” Wonwoo says quite loudly, a few of the audiences watching the play rehearsal (or what’s left of it since Wonwoo slept through half an hour of it) looking back at him, gesturing with a finger on their lips. Wonwoo bows a little for apology and turns to eye Mingyu. “I didn’t say yes to anything. This is coercion.”

      “I’m not threatening you, hyung. Geez, you’re so cute being all flustered and shit.” Wonwoo stares at him sternly. “Anyway, remember what I told you? That’d be like helping each other? Well, I’ve got something to make you agree with me. I’ll show it to you later outside. It’s too dark here.”

      “You’re a brazen one, aren’t you?”

      “Yes, sir. That’s what the folks in my hometown call me, ‘Kim Brazen’.” Mingyu laughs at his small spoof. “It’d just blow your mind, honestly. You’ll thank me so much, you don’t even know. Hint, hint...it’s something that rhymes with fake dear.”

      Wonwoo’s ears perk up a bit at what he hears. Fake dear. Shakespeare. _William Shakespeare_. He’s Wonwoo’s favorite poet and hearing his name—or something that rhymes with it—roll off of Mingyu’s tongue sounds somewhat like a sham. He calls bullshit, but can’t help to be peaked by the fact that Mingyu even mentioned him.

      “I don’t care,” Wonwoo says like a child, trying to control himself when in fact, he’s starting to get curious by the smile on Mingyu’s face.

      “Anyway, let me propose my plan to you,” Mingyu begins. Wonwoo opens his mouth to say something only to be shut down by the other. “You can have your final say later. Let me explain first.”

      Wonwoo motions for Mingyu to carry on with one hand while holding his sass in the other. “We’ll pretend to be together in front of them. You may not talk to me, which will never happen because I’m irresistible, when they’re not around. As for the rules, I’ve stated the first two, but I’ll give you the list I wrote in class earlier, later because I forgot. We break up after I get Minghao to admit that he’s making me jealous.”

      “So if I agree to this—to all of this, I’d basically be shooting myself in the leg. Isn’t that right, you god awful hotdogger?” Wonwoo hisses with such contempt.

      “Uh, I’m not bad, myself, hyung. I can assure you that,” Mingyu says. “You, the great writer, with me, the great chef Mingyu? It’s like you’re being given the Pleaser Prize.”

      “It’s Pulitzer.” Wonwoo corrects.

      “Pulitzer, pleaser, who cares. The bottom line is, I’m drop dead beautiful so think of it as a one in a million opportunity instead, hyung.” Wonwoo shakes his head in disagreement and Mingyu just shrugs his shoulders while laughing.

      “Anyhow, that will never happen. I genuinely feel like Minghao really likes Jun,” Wonwoo tells Mingyu. The other boy waves his finger in front of Wonwoo in disagreement.

      “Trust me, hyung, no,” Mingyu firmly reassures.

      “Fine,” Wonwoo replies but Mingyu narrows one eye at him. “Fine, your call. But how do you even make it believable?”

      “Ah, that’s where you come in handy, hyung. You’re a writer, you can make good plots and I expect you to make this plot amazing,” Mingyu tells him and it doesn’t sound like a compliment, but more so a death sentence.

      “Is this why you chose it to be me? Of all people?” Wonwoo asks, his hand gesturing himself.

      “Yes. You wrote their theater play, right? You can do a good job, I believe in you.” It’s like Wonwoo’s being clad in dynamite. He doesn’t like where Mingyu’s going with this.

      “But I’ll still decline whatever you’re offering me.” Wonwoo says.

      “Not when you see what’s there in exchange,” Mingyu says and Wonwoo, ever so slightly, gets swayed by his words.

      “Let’s presume, that I’ll be your boyfriend,” he chokes a little at the word, feeling like his tongue got stuck in his throat, “How do you suggest the story goes?”

      “I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to ask for your number. We can talk about it through message—to give you some leeway on the planning and stuff,” Mingyu says. “But if you really want me to give you an answer now, then love at first sight, I guess?”

       _Love at first sight?_

      He snorts with disbelief before he opens his mouth mockingly. “That’s the most preposterous thing I've heard. Me, Jeon Wonwoo, and love at first sight, the dumbest perception about love to ever exist? That’s just pushing it, bud.”

      “See? I’m bad at suggestions. You do it.” Mingyu passes it to Wonwoo, before he gets up and starts fixing his things.

       _No, love is Oedipus._

      “Where are you going?” he asks out of instinct.

      “Rehearsals ended. Let’s go outside.” Mingyu tells him and walks outside of the large room. When Mingyu disappears in the darkness, Wonwoo looks around the stage to see the performers walking around and clearing it from any sign of use and wear. Junhui and Minghao were at one aisle walking with a bunch of colleagues that Wonwoo was familiar with—there was Hansol, Jeonghan who was squishing Chan’s cheek, and Seokmin, Soonyoung, and then Seungkwan, the ever lovingly loud trio whose laughs echo in the theater.

      “Hey, man!” they call out when they notice him and walk all the way to where he was, waving their hands to him as if beckoning. He says hi in his polite and shy manner, giving each of them a hug.

      “It’s good that you could finally come watch us practice!” Jeonghan tells him and he could only smile nervously. Wonwoo didn’t even watch any of it so instead of attempting for a reply, he just laughs along and nod ever so slyly.

      “It took me a lot to convince him, but Jesus really has his ways.” Junhui says, pointing his hands above to praise whatever god there was and everybody laughs at him except Wonwoo.

      “Hey, by the way where’s Mingyu?” Seokmin asks to no one in particular, but his gaze land at Wonwoo. “He was with you here, right? I saw you two talking earlier.”

       _Probably dead in a ditch, that is_ , Wonwoo thinks, but when every eye gawks at him, he stutters. “A-ah, ye-yeah, him? He wen—”

      “Wait, no, he just sent a text.” Minghao cuts him off as he trails his eyes on his phone. “He’s outside and waiting for us so we should hurry, yeah?”

      “That’s verbatim,” he adds and starts to walk out the theater along with their group of friends following. They find Mingyu sitting outside clutching his backpack in one hand another in his pocket like one of those flower boy anime characters that walked perfectly under cherry blossoms in spring.

      “Are we still up for drinks?” Soonyoung asks. Mingyu is the first one to nod his head in agreement, but Jeonghan says no since he is with Chan and he is going to accompany him home since he is minor. Wonwoo also says no, making up some lie about having too much work to do.

      “Open the door for me, alright, Woo?” Junhui reminds Wonwoo and he nods. They say their goodbyes to each other, but Mingyu tells them he’ll just trail them a little later because he has to return his bag to his dorm room and maybe fetch his roommate, Jihoon too if he’s up for it.

      When coast is all clear, and they’ve left, he grabs Wonwoo who was about to walk away and tells him to stay. He rummages his bag before he takes out a gift messily wrapped in some Kraft paper and twine. “For you.”

      “What’s this?” Wonwoo asks. “I never said yes to your offer.”

      “Open it and you will.” Mingyu tells him. Wonwoo peels the wrapper cautiously, because if it really was William Shakespeare, he’d die if it gets tainted for even a bit. But he thinks he should have just ripped it quite hastily, especially when Wonwoo opens it to find an empty notebook with small ‘William Shakespeare’ etched on the cover with highlighter, except for the first page that sported Mingyu's messy handwriting in the rules list he had promised earlier. “Ta-da!”

      “Very funny,” Wonwoo says, feigning laughter. “Thanks for the notebook, at least.” He starts to walk away, quite pissed that he actually expected something from Mingyu.

      "I’m just kidding, hyung.” Mingyu laughs, pacing fast to catch up with Wonwoo. “Here’s the real thing.”

      “What is it?” he asks nonchalantly. “If it’s another one of your shenanigans, you’re dead to me.”

      “Here, hyung.” Mingyu takes out something else from his bag and Wonwoo’s eyes widen at the sight. _Just...wow_. Mingyu offers it to him, but Wonwoo could only stare at something that’s more precious than pretty.

      It was Shakespeare’s First Folio. Of all things, it was a rare literary wonder. Wonwoo’s eyes starts to tear at the sight. It was so beautiful, lovely. He grabs it, careful to not make any dents as if he was looking at jewelry. “Where did you get this?” Wonwoo asks, still in shock.

      “It was just in my room. I found it and brought it because I thought I could use it, but apparently I’m Jared, 19, and I never learned how to read.,” Mingyu says. Wonwoo ignores his perfect use of the meme (because he’s sure Mingyu only gave him this to be able to fulfill being a meme) and instead proceed to scan through the pages, still as careful.

      “Do you even know what this is?”

      “It’s a book by Shakespeare. I’m not dumb.” Mingyu answers sarcastically as if the book held zero value at all for him.

      “This book is my entire life. Are you really giving this to me if I agree?” Wonwoo asks, quite blinded by the remarkable piece of literature in his hands. It really is real. He smiles widely, quite wide for some like himself.

      “Of course,” he nods. “I’m a man of my words.”

      “Is this a bribe? I feel like this is a bribe.” Wonwoo second guesses when realization hits him. Oh god, he really was holding a back bone of history.

      “Is that a yes, then?”

      “Do I even have a choice?” It doesn’t take Wonwoo long to answer. With him giving his life away for a book was big, but there wasn’t much left of it to be concerned over anyway.

      “God bless you, God bless Korea!” Mingyu rejoices, running around as if he had won, then grabbing Wonwoo’s face to plant a big kiss on his forehead.

      More than Wonwoo realizing what Mingyu did or what he got himself into, he realizes that Shakespeare messed up his life before, now it’s probably going to mess it up even more.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. The Wonwoo, the Witch, and His Issues

III

 

 

       Wonwoo already got back to the dorm from when he and the group parted ways (and he had even lavished himself a shower) but it’s still tacit there—he really did give up everything just for Shakespeare, huh? But more than anything, Wonwoo is quite unaware of what he agreed on.

       He stares at the book on the table, the First Folio by Shakespeare that he got from Mingyu earlier. _God, Shakespearean literature is just beautiful in flesh, he thinks._ Still dumbstruck, he runs his hand through the million-dollar crafted paper. He thinks that if he put it on auction or something, he’d be an instant millionaire, but other than that, he’s pretty worried— _worried about Mingyu_. The boy didn’t even think twice to give the book to him, and now, he feels as if he’s cheated Mingyu. And maybe Wonwoo really did cheat him—reticent in a manner that he can’t just holding something of too much value.

       But with just how many people want to get their hands on the Shakespearean folio, Wonwoo can’t just return it that easily—besides, he’s also doing whatever Mingyu’s asking of him in return, so that counts as something, right?

       He rakes up his arms in debate, but decides to return it to Mingyu the following day. He can’t have it. It was just the spur of the moment, he was blinded by rich literature—it was wrong. And as much as he lacks empathy for other people, he doesn’t want to take such baggage with that book. Not when he doesn’t even want to date Mingyu and he’s know the boy for pretty much less than a day. It’s like he’s being tied down to do something he doesn’t even want. _Wait, did he ever want it?_

       And Wonwoo as always, tends to find himself doing the things he’s most against of out of circumstance or if he’s blinded with something. _God, he’s going crazy._

       More than anything, though, what replays the most in his mind is the scene of Mingyu kissing his cheek. The soft and tender kiss against his flesh, too much unlike the spontaneous and quite rancid Mingyu. Wonwoo was in the verge of panic as it slowly sinks in, but he neglects it in the high-line, retracing back his memories in attempt to reverse it. And he does. Placebo or not, it’s quite refreshing to have an open brain.

       Did he really make the right choice, though? Sure, he got the book, but that’s minuscule when he realizes that he may fuck up along the lines of his irrational heartbeat and Mingyu’s spontaneity.

       Wonwoo decides to leave it for later, moving the book to the middle of the table, afraid it may fall and rupture (if that’s humanly possible).

       He’s sits at the edge of his bed, relenting his journal notebook in his other hand, and thinking of something to write about—he hasn’t been able to these days. He’s started to fall into some sort of haze. Well, the entire thing with Mingyu surely took his mind off of whatever depth of his subconscious he’s run into. It’s as if he’s been pulled back into reality, into earth, back to being human.

       And thinking back to when he’d regretted for a moment, questioning culture from repair, Wonwoo surely hasn’t felt as human as right now. He’s always been sized into a person of word, too much writing, too much cascading idealism. He’s always been this author, much more a playwright; languid in the recognition he wants and the satisfaction he lost.

       It’s as if for the brief moment, he’s felt blood flow in his veins once again and not only the cherry blossom running down the course—like Mingyu was too warm to melt his frozen blood vessels tepid. But he’s lived with those cherry trees in his core and he’s not quite sure what to do without them. _Maybe he made a friend._

            _Deidre chased hard for everything she wanted in her entire life—her love, her dreams and the beauty they faced as she wallows under the right sun—_

       Most probably though, somewhere inside his psyche, Thoroughfare was his escape. The story of the lost only aiming to be somebody in recognition but falling under the wrong circumstances. But languid behind his dark eyes, Wonwoo has always looked for something else other than that path—in hopes to retrace the steps in a different manner and not feel the mud ground or the grass spikes zap him in familiarity.

            _—the right lacerations._

       Wonwoo rallies his mind. _God, he was taking a toll on himself_. But with the too little factions and the less than average notions, he snaps himself out of reality. He’s doing it _again_. And what makes him think more than the void he’s gotten himself into is that he’s alright, he’s not sure he’s happy— it’s just that he makes his failures worse for himself and for everyone around him apparently.

       But as much as he is cynical, it’s too much of a irony to even bother to begin with. See, where he sees reality as an empty glass, he’s too much of a woolgatherer at the same time—too critical, too in depth, too far away from reality and its abrasions. He dreams of the escape and freedom because he can’t accept whatever the plate of the real world would serve him. But fair enough, he could use for literary measures and all it takes is his methodical approach and a little trouble in his life.

            _And again, Deidre chased too hard for everything she wanted in her entire life—her valley of youth, the tempest touching her skin as she wallows under deep pain._

       Maybe Wonwoo was too much of the dreamer to be taken seriously, though. That time he’d left home and gave everything he had with that juvenile glee (as if he’s be able to succeed with such prior), he gave up the convictions for a subjective spur, and now, he’s fallen short.

       If Wonwoo was given a chance though, he wouldn’t go back and stop himself from making choices, he’d burn them if it were possible. Create this sort of campfire with all the mistakes he wants to turn back to and roast marshmallows over them in celebration—tasting the bittersweet fluff in his china mouth. But then again, Wonwoo dreamed too hard that he’d given himself a lacerated memoir. And even through it all (through his bedside dreams for when he’d stay up in melancholy), he still reads Shakespeare.

        _How brazen_ , he thinks. Yes, it is brazen, far too brazen for him to even digest; too far from lovely—it was importunate. He himself is probably the most chaotic person he knows.

             _It hurt, but Deidre was as happy as the golden scraps under her feet. In that thoroughfare, she began to open her eyes and see her desires._

       Once again, he’s reeled back into makeshift when he hears his phone ringing under some default tone he hasn’t bothered to change for the last few years. Why would he though? It’s not like it mattered. He would only get casual calls from his friends (most of which are asking him to hang out with them), none from his family, and certainly, he had no messages laid to waste for himself.

       Well, in hindsight, by the nooks and crannies of Thoroughfare, he was the only one there, alone; no recollections, not even that tiny hint of death row breathing, or roundabout. It was just him, lavished in his complexes, and fuck does he hate it. He’s lived with it, but he hates being lonely—still frozen in that inglenook in all splendor when his other friends melted against each other. Maybe that’s his price for disobedience, but maybe he was just afraid that if he melts away, there’s no cranny to catch him and that his friends have been swept away.

       He looks over at his phone to see some unregistered number dialing him, ignoring it out of spite that it just might be some prank caller. When the ringing stops, he inches from that tight little spot at the edge of the bed he’s been domed in and makes home at the wooden chair he’s sure is Junhui’s but still equips it with much splendor.

       He relays his journal on the table, tapping the expensive fountain pen that he stole from his dad’s keep safe (his dad never even mentioned it for him to be guilty, though, and neither does he even care) on the edges of the notebook, creating small ink spike-like marks. And as much as it was more efficient to just slam in a computer and type away, Wonwoo has always been this patron of vintage authenticity more than he hates to admit it. Writing with a paper and pen in hand always seemed to feel more natural, just like the renegades of the classics and the wise-locks of the contemporary.

       It doesn’t take long for his phone to ring again, that same old dial tone he’s grown to hate. He debates on whether to take the call, convening himself as he thinks of the possibilities it may hold; and as much as he is cynical, he’s more curious as he ought himself to be.

       He waits for it to ring for the third time, waiting for that flat sound to disperse in the air instead it’s just replaced by that same exact tone of the wind but in a different mindset; it doesn’t arrive for another time, at least. Wonwoo stares, counting the seconds ticking away on the clock in his mind. He’s sitting there, pen in hand waiting for that disturbance in sound waves, but he only hears silence flow through its specific mediums or whatever science has to offer for them.  
  
_What was he even expecting? Jesus to come back to earth barefoot in all his demeanor?_ Wonwoo was too much of a heathen to even think about it, not when any god can’t even help him get up his feet himself. Wonwoo was all in the slums, they don’t see it, but he’s just as worn out as the seats in the football field.

       When he gets distracted from waiting on the tone ringing, he tries to focus, taking a good 2? 3? Something, something countable hours in conquest of his pen, melting back in ideas, and his ambitious literature, and faux pas.

> _I see reflections of happiness_  
>  _And magnetism;_  
>  _It’s like a flat line revived._  
>  _Mountains,_  
>  _And between those landscapes_  
>  _Bending blended colors—_  
>  _It wasn’t that much of a rainbow_  
>  _But more like a faded denim jacket with equally faded patches_  
>  _I wear when it rains,_  
>  _Stutter under cold weather,_  
>  _Under duress situations,_  
>  _Under the painful wrath of the heavens;_  
>  _Come to me in an apparition._  
>  _Mirror effects, scientific;_  
>  _Learn in class that rainbow is white luminosity,_  
>  _A spectrum._  
>  _Which is to say color is light—_  
>  _Foolish eyes._

 

 

       Wonwoo, for some reason finds himself waking up on his desk, some paper sticking on to his sweat laden face, his dermis glistening under the artificial table lamp. He moves the ricocheted incarnation temporarily crafted in his back in the form of the hood on his jacket he wears to sleep, to look at the time.

        _02:34 AM._ He looks around to see Junhui fully quipped in his bed, snoring at the same pace as the quiet that enveloped the room and some plastic bags on the small table in the small dormitory kitchen. He goes to the plastic bags and open them to see a big hamburger and some *yangkkochi and *dak galbi left overs most likely from Jun’s earlier dinner out.

       And Junhui, as much of an angel as he is when he was asleep, just seems to be too thoughtful of everyone else.

       Wonwoo finds a crumpled sticky note inside the plastic bag, evident even with the monochromatic sheets of card and foil, as he reads it out of sheer curiosity:

            _‘I know you didn’t eat dinner so here’s something. Heat it up, though. It might be cold by the moment you find this.’_

       Wonwoo smiles a little at the sentiment. He was thankful for Junhui the most—he will always be. Even if he was most of the time out of it and mean, Junhui pushed through and Wonwoo can’t help but blush in appreciation. For a second, he considers that he probably likes Junhui, but pushes the thought away in panic. _He doesn’t like Junhui—it’s just friendship._

       Wonwoo puts the note in his pocket to hide the evidence and use it as leverage on Junhui someday—use it to tease him until he would give up in surrender.

       He starts to go through the bags when he’s startled by that same ring tone blaring again, now echoing even louder as the nightfall creeps into a premature dusk. He hears Junhui murmur something incoherent (more so a multitude of groans and complaints) before he shuffles in his bed and sit up to scan for Wonwoo who looked like a dear caught in the headlights by the time Junhui sees him.

       “Can’t you get that? It’s been ringing for 3 hours now.” Junhui complains and Wonwoo, pretty much flustered, runs to his phone with a chorus of soft apologies. “Let me sleep, please.” he was rubbing at his eyes, too exhausted to clearly open them.

       “Did you give my number to anyone else?” Wonwoo asks when he takes his phone to see 18 missed calls under that same unregistered number in dial. They layer the notifications in his phone screen like soldiers in march.

        _Who would call him at this time of the night?_ The only person who knows his number are his friends and they’re not even this invested to converse at midnight—barely even making time with him (or so he thinks).

       “No. Why would I?” Junhui mumbles under his breath, adjusting his sheets as he falls back into his bed, feeling the soft mattress encompass him like some sea he’d splash in.

       Wonwoo was going to turn of his phone to stop the calls inbound but just when he presses the button, he finds a message appearing on his screen: _Hyung, it’s Mingyu. Pick up._

        _God, what does he want now?_ Wonwoo decides to ring back, making his way out of the room to a long and dark hallway only illuminated by the wandering moonlight. With the multitude of students running around for their classes every single minute of the day, the hallway hasn’t looked this vacant. He hears little giggles from the arcs of each end, and it scares Wonwoo for a bit, second guessing whether to return to his room or just stay. He stares at the light peeking in from the windows before he decides for the latter, mindful of the noise that would be inevitable and eventually disturbing Junhui’s sleep once again.

       “What is it?” Wonwoo asks, his voice deep from the sleep he just woke up from. He sounded tired—he was tired, and calling someone at 2 am for reasons he’s not aware of is something that will exhaust him the following day. He’s going to get back of Mingyu for this, he swears. If only he hadn’t roped him in with that goddamn Shakespeare book he’d have had eaten dinner at this time and some sound sleep.

        _“You finally answered.”_ Mingyu’s husky voice falters from the other side of the phone, as if making subtle attempts to be quiet. Well, in the day (not even half a day) that they’ve met each other, Wonwoo deduces that Mingyu had a big mouth, and that ‘this’ for him would be great effort.

       “Technically, I called you; not you me,” Wonwoo corrects him his mocking tone still blaring across radio waves.

       There’s a long pause before he hears Mingyu chuckle a little, followed by shuffling and the sound of the air. _“Hmm. I digress, you wouldn’t have called me if I didn’t flood you with calls, would you?”_

       Mingyu, well, Mingyu was just annoying at 2 am. Wonwoo rolls his eyes at the thought before lets his eyes drift a little, thinking of what to say in reply. He notices a door at one end of the hallway swish open and out one student who peers and paces from left to right. When he spots Wonwoo, he gestures for him to tone down a little, finger over his lips under the hazy midnight silhouette. Wonwoo nods his head in apology, and shifts his eyes to stare out the window in front of his room.

       “Smartypants,” Wonwoo comments before he continues, letting his thoughts sink in when he sees the big clock at the end of the hallway, “Were you seriously calling me at midnight?”

        _“Well, I just wanted to talk to you about my proposition,”_ Mingyu starts, still with that hushed tone he sports. It sounds like he is a bit sick, inhaling more than exhaling, unnatural in flow, coughing a little at the end of his sentence.

       “What proposition? I agreed already haven’t I?” Wonwoo asks as-a-matter-of-factly.

       He doesn’t know what Mingyu wants, but when Wonwoo feels his stomach rumble, all he wants is to finish dinner and get some good sleep. Mingyu doesn’t let him have that.

        _“Did you see the rules?”_ Wonwoo thinks back, searching his mind palace for the rules he glanced at earlier. He layers his thoughts, but nothing. All he remembers is blurred words on the first page of the notebook Mingyu gave him and nothing else.

       “I saw them. I haven’t gone through them though,” he admits through his teeth like it’s something to be ashamed of.

        _“I was expecting that you haven’t,”_ Mingyu offers, and he laughs a little when Wonwoo hisses in reply. _“Anyway, I’ll walk you through it.”_

       How on earth was Mingyu not tired? Does this kid have steel nerves? God, is he not only a warrior with his spontaneity but he’s rather a robot. Wonwoo shivers. If Mingyu can stand not sleeping, well, he’s no match, because given anything else in the world, he’d put sleep second on the list—no, scratch that, second—, he, guesses.

       “Jesus, Mingyu! Just go to sleep. I’m tired.” Wonwoo tells him, that hint of annoyance lacing his tone that’s grown a bit too familiar. Wonwoo always seemed pressed—well, most of the time he really was—but generally, everything irks him like an itch under his skin. _Fuck_ , if he could just stop the crawling feeling in his bones.

        _“I’m outside your building though, hyung. I’ve been here for 2 hours at least.”_ Mingyu says it as if it’s not the middle of the night; as if it’s just so easy to be waiting that long.

       Wonwoo eyes widen at what he hears; all the sleep leaving his body in an instant as if a shattered glass. More than eccentric, Mingyu was just so fucking amazing.

       “What?! Why are you there? Go home!” Wonwoo tells him, half-yelling, afraid that he might disturbed his neighboring students with the notion of surprise. He’s so annoyed with Mingyu, he swears.

        _“Too late. I’ve committed, might as well finish it for me, huh?”_ Mingyu laughs.  
“No,” Wonwoo digresses, peering more so through the windows in attempt to see the boy, but he’s not there. At least not where Wonwoo was situated.

        _“Alright. Kiss your Shakespeare goodbye then. I’ll tell Jun hyung to get it.”_ he threatens and Wonwoo is barely fazed. He might just as well return the book if it’s like this. It’s not like he wanted it in the first place.

       “You know what, fine!” Wonwoo tells him, before he enters his dorm room again, searching for that book in the darkness, trying to not make too much noise to wake Junhui up. He grabs hold of it from the margins and page-lines and Wonwoo takes it in one hand, careful not to maim it at the slightest. “God, where are you?”

        _“Naked cherry tree.”_ Mingyu says and Wonwoo stops for a bit in confusion which Mingyu’s phrasing and choice of words. Wonwoo asks him to repeat it, this time coherently and not like a child describing his grade-school drawing to his parents. _“The naked cherry tree, it’s like outside.”_

       “And where exactly is that?”

        _“Just near your entrance. The forest area, I guess.”_ Mingyu tells him and when Wonwoo only answers in silence, he continues, _“Also, hyung, hyung, hyung...do you still have the food Junhui hyung brought you? Can you bring it? I’m hungry.”_

       “What if I don’t?” Wonwoo asks him, challenging Mingyu with his words, trying to sound playful, but it just sounds like a threat more than anything.

        _“Then no more Shakespeare?”_ Mingyu suggests.

       “I’m going out now to return it, don’t be so thrilled, bub.” Mingyu mutters a series of nos from the opposite line, and Wonwoo could only rejoice in his mind.

        _“No, no! I was just kidding, hyung. Keep the book, please, I don’t need it—you do,”_ Mingyu says it like he’s on some TV series. Wonwoo groans, well, he does want to keep the book without the consensus between him and Mingyu, but it was what he was given, and god he sure does wish Mingyu gets over it quick.

       “This is bribery. I hate you,” he says, rolling his eyes in annoyance before placing the book— _his_ book on the table.

        _“Oh, you’ll live with it, hyung. By the way, can you bring me a jacket, please? It’s cold out here,”_ Mingyu asks again, and Wonwoo just unwillingly complies.

       “And I’m to blame for that?” he hears Mingyu answer a soft hmm, noting the heavy breathing that’s just starting to become evident.

       Even though it’s nearing summer, the deep nights were still as cold as when it was winter. He’s unenthusiastic as he searches his closet for an extra jacket, to which he only finds an old one that’s a bit small on him. He takes it out anyway, sure that Mingyu will just make use of it—he’s not that keen on keeping Mingyu company, he just wants him to shut up.

       Mingyu says again, and Wonwoo’s outside the door, sporting a jacket of his own; the one for Mingyu’s in one hand, and the food he’d reheated at the quickest rate in his life. He realizes he hasn’t ended the call when he hears Mingyu’s voice through the speakers one final time, before he hangs up, _“Hurry I’m freezing.”_

       He walks down the small flight of stairs and searches outside of the lobby to look for the naked cherry tree Mingyu was blabbering about. He strolls for a bit before he sees a large old cherry tree that’s been rid of spring and a Kim Mingyu smiling at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *yangkkochi - grilled lamb skewers  
> *dak galbi - spicy stir-fried chicken
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Sleepless Under the Cherry Tree

IV

 

 

 

       “Now here’s my favorite man in the universe!” Mingyu says as a welcome—too quiet in the dead of the night, but too loud for just the two of them. He retracts from his fetal position of rubbing his arms warm to walking towards Wonwoo and opening them wide for an embrace.

       Now, another thing that Wonwoo adds in his mental list is that Mingyu is just too affectionate to even function right. And while Mingyu is too doting, Wonwoo, doesn’t do much.

       “Well, you’re not mine, bud. How about that?” Wonwoo replies, avoiding the hug and instead extending his arm to give the jacket which Mingyu delightfully receives. Mingyu examines it before putting it on, eyes over each crevice and seam, and a bit short for his long arms and torso.

       “I expected you to have bigger clothes, hyung.” Mingyu comments, rolling up the sleeves to conceal the small gap of the sleeve and his wrists, still cold even with the additional layer of clothing.

       It is such an irony how the night is cold as day is hot. And it seems too daunting to even matter, the weather and the fluctuating temperatures, and Mingyu being the a warm campfire and Wonwoo, the slickest ice. More than anything, though, it seemed too insipid to even measure how they actually meet in the middle, transition within two extremes and two rarities. But maybe, along the lines, some device or alienation makes it possible to occur.

        _See, cold can’t be determined without a little hint of warmth._

       “I didn’t expect you to be such a fucking beanpole.” Wonwoo tells him, taking a seat on the small bench that framed the bottom of the tree. Mingyu just shrugs a sigh, following the older in the empty seat beside him, placing the food between them.  
  
“You’re tall too, hyung. It’s just that you’re still small.” Mingyu says, searching the plastic bag for food. He grabs a stick of the yangkkochi and savors the flavors in his cold laden tongue. “It’s like I can just envelop you in my arms and you’ll be like a little fluffy doll. It’s cute.”

       For Mingyu, food was good. And good meant beautiful. That’s why he studies to become a chef—following the steps of his elders and just making the world better with tastes and spices and, god, Mingyu is too optimistic for anything. He smiles as the flavors hits the back of his throat and slowly sinks into his stomach. “I guess I should feed you well while I’m your boyfriend, huh?”

       “I don’t know how that makes any bit of sense, but please, remind me why I’m here again?” Wonwoo asks, ignoring Mingyu and instead taking pair of chopsticks and starts to pick at the dak galbi.

       “Well, my good sir, you’re here to be blessed my presence,” Mingyu says, making a gesture for a rainbow that takes Wonwoo a few seconds to notice when he looks up from eating. Mingyu starts to get worried that Wonwoo would just up and leave, but he doesn’t so Mingyu speaks again, taking back his words with his little laugh. “I’m just kidding. You obviously wouldn’t be so thrilled by that.”

       “You should have mentioned that earlier then I wouldn’t have wasted my time,” Wonwoo says, his tongue sharp as steel even at 2 (nearing 3) in the morning. The cold wind was blowing, but here they were, eating under the dawning moon, sleep deprived. Wonwoo starts to feel sleepiness creep up on him again, but the only thing that pulls him back into earth is Mingyu’s chuckles as he devours food.

       “I told you, I wanted to discuss the rules.” Mingyu says, looking at Wonwoo happily eating even though he was so unwilling earlier. “Fir—”

       “What rules?” Wonwoo looks up to him to ask, making Mingyu sigh in response and shake his head in disappointment.

       “Hyung, I know you probably love the sound of your own voice, but I like mine too.” Mingyu remarks in sarcasm, but Wonwoo find its hitting his core a little bit. "Alright?”

       “Fine,” Wonwoo says, his eyes wide at the younger. Defeated, he drops his pair of chopsticks on the plastic bag they propped on the bench, halting himself from eating to pay attention to Mingyu.

       “See? It’s easy, isn’t it? Thank you,” Mingyu says as if reprimanding a toddler. Wonwoo rolls his eyes in a manner that’s pretty familiar to Mingyu—it’s what he’s seen the entire day they’ve know each other.

       That’s the thing, though. Mingyu says ideologies that Wonwoo already wholeheartedly knows about himself (and god would he pay millions just to not know a single one of them), but Mingyu rather always leaves him rethinking and reflecting. Even in the day they’ve know each other, the times Wonwoo had to contemplate is beyond him and he hates it—he hates how Mingyu says it so nonchalantly with a smile on his face, when Wonwoo can’t even admit it to himself. Even Descartes would be jealous of Wonwoo’s contemplating skills, as if defeating the pioneer. But maybe, Wonwoo was a little neurotic—maybe that’s why he’s into poetry, and maybe this is just him and his complexes clashing in disagreement. Whatever it is, it’s few of the things that Wonwoo sweeps under the rag to leave unattended for another forgotten day.

       And then again, Mingyu still is talking to him as if nothing came out from his mouth, as if Wonwoo wasn’t offended at the slightest.

       “So we’ve discussed rules 1 and 2, right?” Wonwoo nods. “First is we date to make Minghao jealous and two is we break up once he is. But the vital thing is rule 3, don’t tell anyone about the whole contract. Fourth, we have to at least go on dates to make it believable. At least a double date with them so that I can really show Minghao. Fifth is that I’ll wait on you after classes, so if you gladly could, share with me your class schedule it would be great. And now, sixth, is respect and boundaries.”

       Wonwoo scoffs and laughs at Mingyu, not believing the last part of it. “I’m just loud, obnoxious and extremely attractive, but I’m a man of respect and understanding. I won’t put you in situations you’ll be uncomfortable with because I believe in respect.”

       “You say that as if you didn’t force me in this situation.” Wonwoo says and Mingyu frowns, shaking his head. Wonwoo can’t understand Mingyu and his spontaneous. He doesn’t even bother to do so.

       “With all due respect, hyung, you agreed. I think that’s all understandable, yeah? I mean, you’re smart.” Mingyu tells him. Wonwoo sighs reluctantly before Mingyu continues, “So anyway, with that in mind, we make a back story.”

       “A back story? You expect me to come up with a back story?” Wonwoo says as if he’s ridiculed, phrasing each letter slowly to make Mingyu understand that he’s not really up for it. “At this hour, really?”

       “Well yeah. Between the two of us, you’re the writer. I’m just a mere chef-to-be,” Mingyu states, slightly pushing Wonwoo into agreement.

       “I don’t want to though. What will you do about that?” Wonwoo challenges confidently.

       Mingyu notices him smirk a little. _What does it take to just make Wonwoo say yes?_ Mingyu doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how he could know. So instead, he tips his metaphorical tea cup and spills it all over Wonwoo, the best way he knows how to. “I don’t know, I’m not the one who received a rare Shakespeare book, bud, but go off I guess.”

       “Fuck you. I should never have accepted it.” Wonwoo says under his breath, thinking that he was right when he first thought that Mingyu would use the book to pull his leg—now, in a a less than 12 hours, it’s like he’s given up his other leg. Maybe at some point soon, he’d have traded all his limbs for the book. God, what a fucking genius. “About that, I’m returning it. I can’t receive anything like it. I feel like my entire world’s going to blow up if I see the book again.”

       “No, hyung you can have it. Really.” Mingyu insists, opening his mouth slightly to breathe in time with his pacing heart under the cold breeze. There was fog building from his chilled eupnea to a small radius in front of his chided words. He smiles when the effluvium disappears into the night

       “You’re binding me into this. I hate you,” Wonwoo curses at him, miff canvased over his cold laden skin, but he laughs a little as the frost sinks in.

       “It’s worth it, though, isn’t it?” Mingyu smiles before taking a bite of the yangkkochi he’d forgotten was in his hand, cherishing victory with the food he savors.

       “I won’t even comment on that,” Wonwoo sighs and continues, carrying on with the early conversation from a different point, as if against his will—it probably was.  
“How do you want the story to go? I’ll just help you polish it.”

       “I told you earlier, love at first sight,” Mingyu tells him, not letting go of the earlier notions he’d set. See, Mingyu is _driven_ —compulsive—to the point that he’ll back track into his ideas just to give them a proper ending, a fairy tale denouement (that every food once cooked must be seen to the end). “I fell in love with you, Jeon Wonwoo, and your cold stare that pierces through my heart. Too good for a happy ending, too bad for none...”

       Mingyu continues to speak in a poetic tone as if mocking Wonwoo who stares at him while slow clapping in the same amount of sarcasm he perceives until Mingyu stops. “You should probably start to consider changing your majors—at least put your literature to good use.” Wonwoo remarks a tad bit rudely and Mingyu pouts at him. “Just saying.”

       “How about this, then: you saw me, the mighty and handsome Kim Mingyu, and was like: ‘oh, I think my frozen heart has melted.’ and then I went: ‘hmmm, I guess I should give this man a sunshine in his dark and enigmatic world and maybe then he’d be able to smile. And then, a dragon comes sweeping in, scooping us both in its arms while the skies declares that love has bloomed between the darkness and the light.” It takes a few seconds for Wonwoo to digest what Mingyu had said as if it ought to be taken from sone insufferably messy information system. _God, what is he even putting himself through?_

       “That’s pushing it, hun,” Wonwoo says when it sinks in, drifting through Mingyu’s pompous words with the finesse he holds, well, maybe not really.

       “Off with the endearments already, hyung?” Mingyu says and Wonwoo doesn’t reply, he just casually rolls his eyes before Mingyu shakes his head and continues. “I really hope you don’t fall in love with me. That’d be the most dangerous you could ever do.”

       Wonwoo sighs. _What about falling in love is dangerous?_ Wonwoo doesn’t know. Maybe he’s read too much books to understand, or maybe he’s read them a lot that he’s too knowledgeable. And as much as Wonwoo falls easily, he doesn’t fall for people. He falls for notions, for ideologies—and Mingyu isn’t going to be one of them, at least in Wonwoo’s beliefs.

       “Alright...” he trails, ignoring Mingyu as usual. “So maybe we just present that you started to talk to me and then we clicked? It doesn’t have to be that creative, you know?”

       “And?”

       “We say that we started dating or whatever about two weeks ago and that we didn’t tell them then because we weren’t sure with it.” Wonwoo finishes trying to speak as fast as possible so he can go back inside his room where its warm. “But I guess give it a few days before we say it, yeah?”

       “Okay, wait. I’ll jot that down.” Mingyu says, holding him up to take his phone out and type in.

       “Why do you even need to?” Wonwoo asks him, an urge to peek at the other’s phone but he stops himself and instead takes the burger that’s been long cold from the plastic bag and begins to eat it.

       “I need rehearsals. You don’t know but I’m a very bad liar.” Mingyu tells him, putting his phone back in his pocket where he keeps his hands a little bit longer for warmth.

       “Well, I do know now, don’t I?” Wonwoo says, before he swallows a piece and continuing to speak midst the dawning silence. “Hey, where did you even get my number?”

       “Ah, from Jihoon hyung,” Mingyu tells him, smiling a bit before he continues, “I asked Minghao for it originally, but he won’t. Same for Junhui hyung. That’s why I kinda stole Jihoon hyung’s phone to look for it, so here we are.”

       “Geez, thanks. I asked for an answer, not a narrative—but good for you.” Wonwoo says, and Mingyu stares at the burger as if he’s looking at the evolution of man flash by in front of him.

       “Can’t you give me just half of it?” he asks, his puppy dog eyes seemingly peeking through. He reaches his hand out only to be buzzed off by Wonwoo who was devouring the burger as if it was his last meal.

       “Nope?” he says through his chewing, too little etiquette, but it was a cold night and Wonwoo doesn’t really care about societal conventions.

       “I’ll make you a better one.” Mingyu offers and Wonwoo remembers that Mingyu was studying to be a chef.

       “You’ll probably poison me, no thanks.”

       “Consumer health and safety is our number one priority, hyung. You’re good,” he explains.

       “How can I be so assured?”

       “I don’t know...” Mingyu trails. “How about trying to see the good in people sometimes for assurance, yeah?”

       Wonwoo’s eyes widen, clearly offended. “How can you say that?” Well, he supposes it’s true, but that’s about it, really. And Wonwoo could go all around ranting at him about it, but instead, he just sighs. “It’s good observation, but you’ve known me for less than a day, Jesus Christ.”

       “Just a speculation, but apparently it’s true,” Mingyu says, still eyeing that burger with all the strength he has as if he’d punch a hole through it with his gaze.“Hmmm. I should go guessing people’s fortunes.”

       When it’s Mingyu saying it, all Wonwoo could just do is roll his eyes. He breaks what’s left of the burger in half and gives it to Mingyu in defeat. “Please don’t. If you have pity on them, don’t.”

 

 

       Wonwoo’s still half-asleep when he practically gets dragged out of their room by Junhui all the way to the cafeteria for breakfast at 7 am. The usual early mornings where they’d wait for Minghao. He takes a seat at one of the bland looking benches that almost looked like a prison refectory with the way the white reflected the early morning sun.

       Junhui takes the seat in front of him, resting one of his arms at the curve of a chair’s backrest in attempt to stretch and Wonwoo looks at him, his usual sharp eyes wealthy of bags and drowsiness.

       “Make it a habit to wake up early, yeah?” Junhui says and laughs, his smile brighter than the morning will ever be.

       “You’re not the boss of me.” Wonwoo grumbles in attempt to fight, but it only comes out as a croak from his deep early morning voice. He coughs a little to adjust his throat, wetting it with the saliva that has formed at the back of his mouth.

       Junhui looks at him, arms now crossed where his body meets the edge of the table, leaning over to mock Wonwoo. “But you’re here,” Junhui comments.

       “I hate you, Jun,” he murmurs from where he crosses his arms at a perpendicular on the table and make it as his makeshift pillow, drifting into whatever the lack of sleep drives him to. He’s fleeting for a second, body still awkward, but he arches his back with a tantalizing moan that sounded too inappropriate if taken out of context. He lavishes in languid leisure, but he moves and groans until he goes back into a small sleep.

       “Why would you even sleep at 5 am?” Junhui asks Wonwoo who’s laid there on the benches, and Junhui moves so slowly but nimbly to go get breakfast for him, leaving Wonwoo.

        _Why did he sleep that late?_ Wonwoo curses himself, but more than that, he curses Kim Mingyu for keeping him up at midnight. He about to spill the younger’s name, mention Mingyu as a reason, but Wonwoo rethinks and decides not to and instead tone out a little grumble. It’s all starting to dawn in to Wonwoo. He’s not quite sure why he agreed so easily, but as much as he should regret, he decides to just get over with it as quickly as possible. Besides, he got a literary treasure and that’s all he cares about.

       Junhui returns with a tray of food, his usual meal and a sandwich for his friend who was now face flat on the table. Wonwoo gets up and takes his breakfast to fill him for his early morning energy.

       “I got you a sandwich.” Junhui tells him, eyes sifting through the cafeteria which light up when he finds his boyfriend, mullet still fresh from early morning showers. "Oh, Haohao's here."

       Wonwoo can’t see the thing about mullets, but he guesses that Minghao pulls it off well, but if it were him he’d rather be bald. But more than that, what’s more off putting than mullets is Mingyu smiling wide right behind Minghao.

       “Hey, Jun ge, Wonwoo hyung!” Minghao greets them, taking the seat beside his boyfriend offering the empty one beside Wonwoo for Mingyu.

       “Hey Hao!” Jun exclaims, pulling his boyfriend into an embrace as Wonwoo and Mingyu’s eyes meet, but it gets cut when Jun calls Mingyu. “Hey, Gyu, you’re here too.”

       “Of course, hyung! I’d never miss this time of the day. Breakfast is vital for good health.” Mingyu says, waving at them both. Wonwoo turns away to avoid eye contact, relishing himself with the sandwich Junhui brought him instead, but he finds Mingyu smiling exactly in front of his face. “Good morning Wonwoo _hyung_.”

       “Oh, yeah, Wonwoo hyung you probably met him last night, yeah?” Minghao asks.

       “Ah, yes. You brought your pet dog again today.” Wonwoo comments a bit harshly, probably from the pique and lack of sleep.

       “Hey, hey, that’s a bit mean, Woo. Let Mingyu live, yeah?” Junhui says. “Do you dislike him?”

       “No, I don’t dislike him, Jun.” Wonwoo says in the most passive aggressive manner while Mingyu is just there; his poise, still unchanging.

       “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re dating. You actually look good together.” Minghao says and Wonwoo fakes a laugh before disagreeing.

       “I guess Wonwoo hyung really hates that, huh?” they all laugh and Wonwoo mouths a curse at Mingyu in annoyance. The early morning flashing back at him.

       “Who are you again?” Wonwoo asks him a bit sarcastically.

       Mingyu just chuckles at Wonwoo before tuning into the couple’s conversation, not understanding a bit of their Chinese. He looks at how Minghao smiles happily beside Jun as he sighs slowly letting his eyes linger a little bit to look at Wonwoo but digresses and smiles wide himself instead.

       “Anyway, You’re early today aren’t you?” Jun asks Minghao.

       “Yeah, pretty much. It’s all because of Mingyu though,” Minghao tells on him, still in the language foreign to him. “He woke me up at 4 am because he forgot to bring the keys to his and Jihoon hyung’s dorm when he went out so he crashed at mine. Thankfully Sicheng ge was at Yuta hyung’s dorm so I let him stay for a bit, but I couldn’t really sleep after that because he wouldn’t stop blabbering about things, a boyfriend or something.”

       Wonwoo listens to them. He just listens, like he always does. Even if he doesn’t understand them, he analyzes their tones and tries to decipher them, but he’s just as clueless as Mingyu. Is this what Mingyu means by plotting? Because for Wonwoo, it really does sound like they’re talking about him.

       “What? Why were you out, Gyu-ah?” Junhui asks Mingyu, the motherly nature in him peeking through along with the morning sun rays. “We’re not allowed out of the dorms after midnight, you know that.”

       “Yeah, hyung I know that, but I had to go do something important...” Mingyu trails and Jun’s eyes widen, as if Mingyu had been doing something illegal, to which Mingyu laughs at and continues. “It’s not what you think, hyung. I just went to talk to someone.”

       “By someone, is this a person you’re seeing or...?” Junhui asks him, suggesting. Jun has always been so curious about things. If he’d have more ambition, he’d be a detective, but that’s for another Jun in another universe.

       “I guess I can’t really keep it now, huh?’ Mingyu says in a small shy laugh.

       “Are you serious?” Junhui is quite surprised. With Mingyu being all childish, they really can’t see him being with someone. And this? _Well, they’d better see to believe._

       Minghao claps his hands to show a point, “See, Jun ge, that was my initial reaction! I mean only a fool would agree to Mingyu. Honestly.”

       “Who is this unlucky person, Gyu?” Junhui asks him. “Do I know them?”

       “Aye, hyung’s that’s kinda mean.” Wonwoo’s ears perk up, hoping to god Mingyu wouldn’t mention him. “Also, I can’t disclose it just yet. I’d rather they say it.”

       Wonwoo sighs thankfully, them noticing that he hasn’t spoken about anything since earlier and instead just being there, digesting what they were talking about.

       “Fine, but please do tell me and Hao about it. I’d be happy to support you both.” Jun tells him.

       “I agree, but what’s more important now is that you tell us why you came back at 4 am, yeah?” If there was anything Minghao hated, it’s not finishing the stories they started. He takes every opportunity to put a conclusion to whatever he does, never leaving anything hanging.

       “Ah, yeah, it was supposed to be just for 10 minutes but they kept me waiting for them that’s why I came back past 4 am.” _Is he serious?_ Wonwoo can’t believe the guy. How can Mingyu have the guts to say they he kept him waiting when literally no one asked him to wait or even talk to Wonwoo at that time? He can’t help but to scoff in disbelief.

       And before Wonwoo could realize it, he was reacting. “What do you mean kept you waiting? You literally—”

       Sometimes, Wonwoo just considers living his life with tape over his mouth.

       “He literally what, hyung?” Minghao questions, a little doubtful, the other Chinese boy looking at him too. “Why are you reacting like that?”

       “Nothing, nothing...don’t mind me.” Wonwoo waves them off, eyes lingering where he can’t see the two boys and Mingyu holding back his laughter.

       “Wait, now that I think about it, you were out last night too...” Jun pries.

       “Hey, Jun, did you not get coffee?’ he asks when he looks at the tray Junhui brought, the sight of caffeine gone and instead replaced with the off-brand (he supposes) orange juice, ignoring the two.

       “By chance, are you two...” Minghao continues, staring at the two.

       “Hold that thought, I’ll get some coffee.” Wonwoo gets up to get coffee but Mingyu beats him to it before he gets interrogated too.

       “I’ll get you some hyung.” Mingyu tells him, patting his back as if passing on a big burden and Wonwoo glares at him.

       Is it bothering? Yes. Does Wonwoo hate it? Yes. Is there a possibility of Wonwoo committing first hand murder? Quite huge—maybe, rather growing in radius when he sees Kim Mingyu just smiling there like a fool as if Wonwoo’s tired stares are fuel for his soul.

       Everything about it bothers Wonwoo, and as much as he wants to delete it from his mind and pretend as if Mingyu doesn't exist at the mean time, his friends were here, interrogating him.

       He could say no, deny it. In fact, _they weren’t really dating, right?_ They were _just pretending, right?_ Wonwoo shouldn’t get all sensitive over it, right? He should finish it up as fast as possible, right? It’s not like they’d make a big deal out of it, right? _Wonwoo doesn’t even know anymore_. Things have been very confusing for him lately. Maybe even more confusing when he realizes he blurts the answer loud enough for the whole cafeteria to hear. “Fine, YES!”

       Wonwoo turns red and walks off to Mingyu, dragging him away to somewhere, coffee in hand. _Sigh_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think. Thanks.


End file.
